


Key to Happiness

by merle_p



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Poe Dameron (Comics)
Genre: Chance Meetings, Enemies to Lovers, First Aid, First Time, Hand Jobs, LBD Treat, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Canon, Post-War, Prison, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: “Damnit, Terex,” he says, and the prisoner crouching in the corner of the narrow cell slowly lifts his head.“Commander Dameron,” Terex responds dryly.“It’s General,” Kosh corrects him with an air of haughtiness. Poe winces. Terex smirks.“GeneralDameron,” he says, somehow making it sound like an insult, and oh yes, it’s Terex alright, although he looks a little older than Poe remembers him and considerably worse for wear.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Terex
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	Key to Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Dear thedevilchicken, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to write a little bit of Poe/Terex for you - hope you enjoy this one.

“I think I finally realized the key to happiness. Stop caring about the fate of the galaxy.”

_(Terex, Star Wars: Poe Dameron Comics, issue 24)_  
  
  


  
Whenever Poe had let himself imagine the end of the war, one thing he hadn’t really seen in his future was a seemingly endless line of prisoners waiting to be interrogated. 

Interrogated by him. 

In fact, if anyone had asked him, he probably would have said that he wasn’t expecting there to be many prisoners at all. Surely anyone who wasn’t dead, he had thought, would have defected or surrendered to the Resistance by that point. 

Alas – as it turns out, there are plenty of First Order sympathizers scattered all across the galaxy who somehow haven’t gotten the message that their side has already lost, and plenty of politicians having a hard time getting over the fact that the First Order blew up their political allies, and in general a lot of folks who don’t seem to understand the meaning of ‘kidnapped and brainwashed as a child’.

Governments who had steadfastly ignored the Resistance’s desperate calls for help are now surprisingly eager to claim their services for their own goals, and vague threats have been made regarding a deeper investigation into Poe’s hasty departure from the New Republic Navy … never mind that the New Republic Fleet doesn’t actually exist anymore.

And Poe, who has spent the past years giving everything he had to be a rebel, a spark, a thorn, a wrench, now cannot help but feel selfish for even considering to let his own conflicted emotions interfere with the newly established peace he was trying so hard to help bring about.

So he swallowed his pride, and buried his dreams, and here he is on Chandrila, with a row of medals he doesn’t think he deserves, in charge of a prison he doesn’t want, and tasked with figuring out which ones of the hundreds of prisoners passing through his facility actually pose a threat to the newly formed interplanetary alliance and which ones were just unlucky enough to get caught up in this mess.

At least for today, though, there is only one last cell number on his list.

“So who is this guy?” he asks, and wonders how much BB-8 will judge him if he makes himself a drink as soon as he walks through the door to his quarters tonight.

Kosh, his young Chandrilan aide, swipes a button on his datapad. “They brought him in yesterday, Sir,” he says. “He was picked up by a group of Corellian soldiers on Bogano.”

“Bogano?” Poe repeats, raising his brows. He detaches the electronic master key from his belt and starts typing in the code for the door.

“That’s a long way from here. Why drag this guy all the way over to us?”

“Uhm, Sir,” Kosh responds, a little awkwardly. “He was identified as a former First Order agent. According to our data …”

He scrolls down his pad. “… he worked with Captain Phasma.”

“Wait, what?” Poe says, because that sounds … but no, he’s being ridiculous. Possibly, probably, he is even losing his mind.

He enters the final digits of the code, waits for the door to slide open, steps over the threshold – and for a very, very brief moment considers turning around and walking away and pretending that he never set a foot inside this particular cell.

“Damnit, Terex,” he says instead, and the prisoner crouching in the corner of the narrow cell slowly lifts his head.

“Commander Dameron,” Terex responds dryly.

“It’s General,” Kosh corrects him with an air of haughtiness. Poe winces. Terex smirks.

“ _General_ Dameron,” he says, somehow making it sound like an insult, and oh yes, it’s Terex alright, although he looks a little older than Poe remembers him and considerably worse for wear.

“What happened to him?” Poe asks sharply, and the young aide fidgets under his gaze.

“Sir,” he says nervously. “The people who brought him in … “ He swallows. “… said he resisted arrest.”

Poe rolls his eyes. “I’m sure they did,” he says coolly, and resists the urge to slap a hand over his face.

It’s not that he doubts that Terex would fight to avoid being captured – in fact, he cannot really imagine his arrest going any other way. But the bruises covering the side of his face look a lot like someone backhanded him at an angle that doesn’t usually happen during an active fight, and Poe just … well, it’s not like he never fantasized about repeatedly punching Terex in the face, but never in those fantasies had Terex been handcuffed with his arms twisted behind his back, and the thought that he’s now working for a side that sees this kind of treatment as normal procedure leaves a bitter taste in the back of his throat.

Terex gives him a sardonic smile whose effect is only heightened by the dried blood on his split lip, looking as if he knows exactly what Poe is thinking and considers him an idiot for still believing in the purity of their cause.

Poe sighs. He didn’t use to sigh like this, he thinks, so heavy and tired and old.

“Get me a medkit and some water,” he says, and cringes inwardly at the young soldier’s desperately eager salute. For a moment, he lets himself think of his pilots, who used to follow his orders without hesitation but still were quite willing to tease him mercilessly in between bouts of enemy fire.

Most of them are dead now, of course. No point in dwelling on what once was.

He kneels down next to Terex and reaches for his chin, tilting his face into the light.

Terex, to his surprise, doesn’t resist, just lets Poe move his head and closes his eyes against the sharp brightness of the ceiling lamp. 

“The great Poe Dameron on his knees, oh my,” he says, sarcasm only slightly dampened by the fact that the movement of his jaw is restricted by Poe’s firm grip. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Shut up,” Poe says tiredly. He used to have better comebacks that that. “You look like shit, by the way.”

“Yeah, well,” Terex says. He turns his face down abruptly, and Poe’s fingers slide off his chin. “It’s not my fault that the charming young men I ran into on Bogano were a little, shall we say, overenthusiastic.” He glances up at Poe with a familiar glimmer in his eyes.

“You, on the other hand, look delightful. A little tired maybe. Is it a lover who is keeping you awake at night, or just your guilty conscience?”

He is obviously joking, trying to get under his skin, and there is absolutely no reason for Poe to feel as flustered as he does. And yet he is still trying to come up with a response that won’t embarrass him when he is saved by Kosh’s return.

The kid lingers awkwardly in the doorway, looking like he is trying his hardest not to wonder what his superior officer is up to, and failing rather miserably.

Poe can relate. He has no clue what he is doing either. But one of the major advantages of being in charge is that he is rarely ever asked to explain himself.

“Put the stuff down here,” he simply says, his tone not leaving any room for disagreement. “Then leave us alone.”

“Sir …” Kosh says hesitantly, and Poe softens a little.

“You can go home,” he says mildly. “Leave the datapad. I’ll wrap things up here tonight.”

“Yes, Sir,” Kosh responds, a lot more enthusiastically, and just like that, they are alone.

Poe waits for the heavy door to fall shut behind the kid, then he pulls out his key once more. He has to lean into Terex’s shoulder in order to reach the handcuffs, feeling hyperaware of every point where their bodies are sliding against each other, if only for a moment.

He watches Terex’s hands twitch slightly in the cuffs and quickly swipes the electronic key across the lock, then he sits back on his heels, putting half a foot of space between them, and carelessly drops the metal cuffs to the ground by his side.

Terex carefully rotates his wrists, rolls out his clearly aching shoulder, but other than that he doesn’t make any move to get away.

“Let me guess,” he raises his brows. “Your honor code forbids you to shoot someone while they are chained to a wall.”

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Poe grits out, and thinks he is perfectly entitled to feeling just a hint of regret at the realization that he is telling the truth. “But I won’t hesitate to gag you if you don’t shut up.”

“Oh lala,” Terex replies, sadly not the least bit fazed by Poe’s threats. “And here I always took you more for the romantic type.”

Poe absolutely and most definitely doesn’t blush. He simply clenches his teeth so he doesn’t say something he might later regret and focuses on setting out the items Kosh delivered per his request.

Then he dips the soft cloth into the small bowl of water and squeezes out the excess liquid before he slides one hand around the back of Terex’s neck, and with the other carefully starts to clean the dried blood off his face.

Terex remains perfectly still, the jumping of his Adam’s apple the only indication that he’s not actually frozen in carbonite, and Poe has no choice but to study his profile, the strong line of his jaw, the deep scars left by the First Order’s implant around his temple and under his ear.

Poe swallows, looks away, and reaches for the second cloth to wipe the rest of Terex’s face. His movements aren’t gentle exactly, though he still cannot help but be careful around the edges of the worst bruises and deepest cuts. 

“Good enough,” he finally says, mostly to himself, and drops the towel to dig through the medkit for the tube of bacta gel. By the time he looks up again, Terex is watching him with an odd expression on his face.

“What?” Poe sighs, unscrewing the cap to squeeze ointment onto his palm.

“Should I feel special?” Terex asks, blatant sarcasm warring with genuine curiosity in his voice. “This seems rather below your paygrade. Or are you playing nurse for all the prisoners?”

“Only the ones obnoxious enough to get roughed up by their captors,” Poe snaps. “How’s the shoulder?”

“What shoulder?” Terex asks.

Poe gives him a pointed look and sets his free hand against Terex’s neck. “This one,” he says, and presses down, hard.

Terex curses in expletives that would get a Hutt to blush. “What was that for?” he grunts, cradling the sprained shoulder with his left hand.

“For complicating my day,” Poe hisses. “How the hell did you let yourself get captured anyway?”

He starts to rub bacta gel into the open cut above Terex’s eyebrow, a little more firmly than he otherwise would.

“You left the First Order years ago. We didn’t have any news on you – you might as well have been dead. Why didn’t you just keep your kriffing head down?”

“What do you think I was trying to do?” Terex huffs, only wincing a little when Poe moves on to another scrape. “I spent the last two years hanging around the edges of the Outer Rim, trying not to die of sheer boredom. Stayed out of all the major drama between you guys and the FO. Do you know how mind-numbingly dull it is out there? Bogano, urgh.”

He looks positively disgusted. “Used to be that you could keep your head down and people would actually leave you alone. And now that everything is over, the First Order is gone, Snoke is gone, Palpatine is gone, little Solo is gone, suddenly there’s bounty hunters all over the galaxy trying to chase down everyone who’s so much as brushed against a stormtrooper in a cantina once. They are out of control.”

“They think they are cleaning up the galaxy,” Poe says, and doesn’t realize how bitter he sounds until the words have actually left his mouth.

The look Terex gives him is intrigued, and far too perceptive for Poe’s taste.

“You don’t approve?” he asks calculatingly. “Seems like their efforts are keeping you employed.”

“Right now they are keeping me from going home and getting a well-earned drink,” Poe snaps. “And also, I believe _I’m_ supposed to be interrogating _you_.”

“Indeed,” Terex says thoughtfully. “So why aren’t you?”

Poe throws his hands up in frustration. “Because _I know you_ ,” he says.

Terex lifts a quizzical brow. “So you trust me?” he asks, almost incredulously.

Poe actually laughs out loud, although it’s not an entirely happy sound.

“Stars, no,” he shakes his head. “But I do trust you to look out for yourself. Which means I know there’s no reason for you to mess with the new interplanetary alliance right now.”

He sighs. “But I also know that if I tell the board to release you on those grounds, they are going to laugh in my face.” He rubs his forearm over his aching eyes.

“You are too high profile. Chances are they will want to make an example out of you. So I won’t waste our time asking you questions I already know the answers to, since whatever you might say is not going to make the least bit of difference in the end.”

He forces himself to look back at Terex and tries not to squirm under his speculative gaze.

“Just let me finish this,” he says wearily, then promptly wishes he hadn’t when he realizes that the only cut he hasn’t treated is the one on Terex’s bottom lip. And Terex must be having similar thoughts, because his eyes are shifting almost imperceptibly, to something a little darker, a little more intense.

Or perhaps it’s just Poe’s nerves playing a trick on him. “Hold still,” he says, as steadily as he can manage, and reaches out to dab the gel against Terex’s lips.

He focuses on the task: ignores the way Terex is watching him closely from half-lidded eyes, does not permit himself to think about the feeling of Terex’s skin under his touch, does certainly not imagine sliding his finger between Terex’s lips, not even once, and is just about to remove his hand when Terex’s arm shoots up, his fingers clamping tightly around Poe’s wrist.

Poe makes an undignified noise, his heart hammering in his chest. He wills himself to pull away, shake off Terex’s grip, brush him off, but instead he finds himself frozen in place, for reasons he isn’t quite ready to explore.

“What are you doing,” he says with some effort, and doesn’t even recognize his own voice. His mouth is suddenly very dry.

“Well,” Terex says, and runs his thumb over the inside of Poe’s wrist in a small, deliberate movement. “I assume the guards will expect you to be in here for a while longer. Since I’m keeping you from your well-deserved relaxing evening, and I’m stuck here for the foreseeable future, and you inexplicably don’t seem to show any particular interest in torturing me for information, I figure we’ll need to find a different way to pass the time.”

Poe exhales. “You are insane,” he says shakily, and Terex grins.

“Quite possibly,” he agrees, amiably enough, and then he tugs, forcing Poe to lean towards him, still on his knees.

Instinctively, Poe slides his knees apart to widen his stance as he tries to keep his balance, and realizes too late that he’s given Terex exactly what he wants when Terex’s free hand slides between his legs, palm pressing firmly against his crotch.

“Stop,” Poe pants, sending a panicked glance towards the door as he swats at Terex’s hand. “You can’t –“ he hisses. “You can’t do that.”

“I don’t hear you saying you don’t want it,” Terex says smugly, putting a little more strength into his grip, and Poe’s mind short-circuits, because _stars_ , it has been far too long, and Terex –

“It doesn’t matter,” he forces himself to say. “You are a prisoner, and it’s –“

“Illegal?” Terex smirks, and Poe desperately shakes his head, trying to stop himself from grinding into Terex’s palm.

“Unethical,” he grits out, and Terex laughs.

“Oh _Poe_ ,” he says, and twists his hand to deftly unfasten the clasp of Poe’s pants. “Here I was thinking that the war had finally turned you into a hardened, cynical veteran, and then you go and say something so – “

“Rational?” Poe chokes out, as Terex’s hand slides into his pants, his fingers warm and rough against the length of Poe’s cock.

“ _Sweet_ ,” Terex grins, and from his mouth the word doesn’t sound like a compliment.

“Fuck you,” Poe swears, weakly struggling against Terex’s iron-tight grip on his hand while his hips are already pushing up into the fingers now firmly wrapped around his cock.

“Hm,” Terex says thoughtfully as he starts to jerk Poe off in earnest. “Maybe next time.”

He licks his lips. “But this isn’t the time and place,” he says, almost regretfully, and starts to speed up the pace. “Because if I ever get to bend you over a flat surface, I fully intend to make you scream.”

As it turns out, Terex does not need to fuck him for Poe to make some noise, and he almost bites through his tongue in a desperate effort to keep quiet when he senses his climax approach, feeling hypersensitive and strung-out, far too wound up to last very long.

He still can’t quite suppress a groan when he comes, spilling all over Terex’s hand and the floor and possibly his pants, and Terex still doesn’t let up, keeps stroking him through the aftershocks until his breath eventually calms down and his heartbeat slows.

When he eventually, gradually, comes back to himself, he is mortified to find that at some point he must have let his head fall forward, and that he is resting with his face against Terex’s good shoulder, his forehead pressed against Terex’s neck.

He pulls back abruptly, his face aflame.

“I’m …” … _sorry_ , he almost says reflexively, even as he realizes how utterly ridiculous that would be. Terex cuts him off, miraculously, by pressing an index finger against his lips in a gesture that in a different universe might be considered almost tender, if not for the fact that his finger is still sticky with Poe’s release.

Apparently satisfied that Poe has overcome the impulse to embarrass them both, Terex finally removes his hand, and Poe instinctively licks his lips, tasting himself. A little clumsily, he fumbles to fasten the clasp on his pants and distantly watches Terex reach for the discarded towel to haphazardly wipe his fingers on the cloth and run it lazily over the floor to mop up the worst of the mess.

“Is this your way of apologizing in advance for breaking out?” Poe finally asks, when the silence has been dragging on for too long, and Terex tilts his head, his expression impenetrable.

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Come on.” Poe rolls his eyes. “I know you can find a way out of here if you want.”

Terex’s smile is all teeth. “I appreciate the flattery,” he says, “I’ll chalk it up to the afterglow. But alas, I’m not one of your Jedi friends. I don’t do magic. And this is supposed to be one of the most secure facilities in the galaxy, is it not?”

Poe snorts. “I’ve seen you talk your way out of Megalox,” he says. “You don’t need the Force to get out of here.”

“Yes, well,” Terex says lightly. “Maybe I’m getting old.”

“You are not old,” Poe says without thinking and then considers punching himself in the face when he sees Terex’s smirk.

“Or maybe,“ Terex drawls, “I found out who is running this prison and simply didn’t want to miss out on seeing you again.”

“Oh _please_ ,” Poe says impatiently, but the truth is that he has no idea whether Terex is at all serious about any part of his response. Poe may pride himself in being able to predict Terex’s behavior in a military conflict with reasonable reliability, but he still doesn't fully understand what in the name of the Force Terex is really doing here.

Perhaps Terex _is_ getting old, he muses, and doesn’t quite know what to do with the sense of melancholy he feels creeping up on him at the thought. He gathers up the towels and the medical supplies and quickly climbs to his feet before he can start to seriously wonder whether he’s trying to drag out his departure and why.

“In that case I will see you tomorrow,” he says, staring down at Terex, who is still sitting in the same spot he did when Poe walked in, almost as if nothing of importance has happened at all.

“I look forward to it,” Terex says, cynical façade once again firmly in place, and Poe opens the door and leaves without letting himself look at Terex again.

He is almost all the way back to his office by the time he realizes that he never bothered putting the cuffs back around Terex’s wrists. 

  
When Kosh comes to see him in his office the next morning, anxious and shame-faced, Poe knows what he is going to say before he even has a chance to open his mouth.

“There was a breach, Sir,” he says, shuffling from one foot to the other nervously.

Poe grips the edge of the table. “Do I want to know what happened?” he asks warily.

“He –“ Kosh swallows. “He subdued the guards, Sir. Took their keys.” He clears his throat. “He also seems to have wiped his file in our central database. Factually speaking, Sir,” he coughs. “He doesn’t exist.”

“I see,” Poe says flatly and isn't the least bit surprised. He knows he is supposed to feel annoyance, anger, frustration, betrayal over having been misled, but instead all he can focus on is the strange pulling sensation deep inside his chest, an odd mixture of relief, envy, and regret.

He sends the kid away with some platitudes and a reassuring smile, waits for Kosh to close the door behind himself, and then he puts his head on the desk, face pressed against the cool wooden surface, and lets himself close his eyes.

He stays like this for a while. In fact, he is idly wondering whether he can possibly get away with never lifting his head again, when his admirable efforts at becoming one with the desktop are interrupted by the ding of an incoming message on his personal datapad.

Without looking, he fumbles for the screen to turn off the sound, but before his fingers hit their goal, the pad already dings again.

Poe curses under his breath and lifts his head, then blinks when he sees his screen.

He has two messages from an anonymous sender. The first one contains nothing but a string of coordinates. The second one consists of a single sentence that he remembers hearing once before.

“ _Stop caring about the fate of the galaxy_ ,“ he reads out loud and snorts. “Hey buddy,” he says, and forwards the first message to BB-8. “Could you pull up those coordinates for me?”

The astromech whistles an affirmative and projects the image of a star system against the wall before Poe has even finished his request. Poe looks at the map, then back at the coordinates in the message, then back at the chart.

“Fuck,” he swears and for a very long moment puts his face into his hands.

Then he looks up and stares at his droid. “BB-8,” he says heavily. “I think I’m going to do something reckless. Potentially stupid even.”

BB-8’s response sounds distinctly resigned.

“You are used to that?” Poe repeats. “Well, then I suppose you are well prepared for whatever lies ahead.”

The droid whistles a brief, doubtful retort.

“Yeah,” Poe says, and wonders what he is getting himself into.

“I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

He leaves his medals on the desk, together with the master key and his ID. He is pretty sure that where he’s headed, he is not going to need any of them. 


End file.
